The IT Nerd

I’m typing this entry from the gate while waiting for my flight from Dubai to New Delhi. This has been an interesting 12 hours. Let me see if I can recap the events for you.

First, my flight aboard the Emirates Airbus A380 from Toronto to Dubai left on time. And I mean literally left on time. I was impressed. Point to point it was 11 hours and 30 minutes. The A380 is a massive aircraft. I cannot believe how many people they managed to get onto it. The thing is I think Emirates might have tried to get too many people into economy. I say that because I sat in the middle isle and my shoulders barely had any room. It was not unusual for me to touch the passengers on either side of me. Room for my feet disappeared when the person in front leaned back to sleep. Other than that, the plane was reasonably comfortable for the most part taking into account that I was flying economy.

The other thing that happened is that I became ill on the flight with sweats, tingling extremities, and a touch of dizziness. I contacted the cabin crew and a tall man with a German accent arrived and took charge of the situation. First he gave me some mango juice while he had me sit down in a seat near to the kitchen in the middle of the aircraft. Then he had me put my head between my knees and told me to breathe deeply. That actually helped a bit. He was very attentive asking me some very pointed questions and expected me to answer them honestly, which I did. He then took me to the back of the aircraft and had me lie on the floor with my feet up. I thought that was weird, but within 10 minutes, I was feeling better. He then escorted me back to my seat and kept a close eye on me for the rest of the flight to make sure I was okay. I really appreciated that. He figured that I had been sitting too long so there wasn’t enough blood getting from my legs to my head. It a common thing apparently on long haul flights. I never did get his name, but if Emirates Airlines reads this, there’s a tall German cabin crew member on flight EK242 on 2/27/2015 who deserves a raise for the way he took care of me.

Other notes about the Emirates A380:

The infotainment system called ICE is the best I’ve ever seen. It combines a touchscreen that responds to smartphone like gestures with a Sony Playstation like joystick with a secondary screen. It’s easy to use and the system is full of content including exterior shots of the A380 from the nose, underneath the plane, and from the tail looking forward. I watched a movie and several TV shows instead of using my iPhone to keep me entertained.

Each seat had one of these. It’s a travel toothbrush, a cloth and a mask so that you can sleep. I forgot mine on the plane which is a shame as it was a nice touch.

Another note, this flight had WiFi. You could get 10MB free or pay $1 for 500 MB. Basically, enough to grab e-mail and maybe do some light surfing. I only enabled my iPhone and didn’t pay for WiFi as all I was doing was iMessaging my wife.

Once I arrived in Dubai, you have to go through security again. But before you do, make sure you check what gate your connecting flight is leaving from.

Dubai International Airport is a huge airport so this is how I get to my connecting flight which was at gate B22:

I took an elevator which took me from the A series gates to this place:

Yes, I catch a train to get to the B and C series gates. The train took about 5 minutes point to point. Another elevator ride and a short walk, I was at my gate. But if I were so inclined, I could take advantage of the shopping:

There’s a lot of high end shopping here at Dubai International. That likely means that it’s above my price point.

I’m typing this using the 30 minutes of free WiFi that’s available at the airport. If you need more, you’ll have to pay for it. Alternately, I could use Skype WiFi combined with the Skype credits that I always have on my Skype account to get online. It was very easy to get connected, but free “all you can eat” WiFi would have been appreciated.

Very shortly, I’ll be boarding my flight to New Delhi. After some sleep I’ll post the next part of my trip online. Watch for it!

UPDATE: Before I board my flight, I should mention that I am seeing what looks like “man in the middle” behavior when it comes to SSL connections. Certificates appear to be coming from the access point and not from the server. I haven’t got time to definitively prove this, but if this is the case, this is not cool.

Today is the day, or evening as the case may be, to leave Toronto and fly to New Delhi India. Since I am the type to leave nothing to chance, I left at just before 5PM for a flight that is taking off at 9:40 PM.  Now I live very close to the airport, so I take public transit to get there as there is an express bus that goes to Pearson Airport from Kipling Subway Station which is close to my home. To see what time that bus arrives, I use an app called Transit which interfaces with the Toronto Transit Commission to show me accurate route and schedule info. It will also plot a route for me as well. It’s very handy and it saves me money as I don’t have to pay for a taxi or drive and park the car at the airport. The advantage of leaving home this early is that I was able to check in quickly and breeze through security. Speaking of the check in process, I am flying Emirates Airlines and I have to admit that this was the easiest and friendliest check in process I have ever experienced. Other airlines could take a few lessons from them. Speaking of checking in, I got a couple of e-mails asking me how I packed for 14 days away. This is what I am traveling with:

I somehow managed to get 13 days worth of business casual clothes as well as all the personal care items I will need for 13 days of travel. My laptop bag is on top slid through the handle so that I am only wheeling one thing through the airport.

I’m in Terminal 1 which is a very nice place to be. Though one thing that was not nice was the free WiFi that Pearson Airport offers. It was pretty spotty in Terminal 1. It took two reboots of my MacBook Pro to get it to connect and allow me to surf the Internet. Others around me had the same issue so I knew it wasn’t just me. Once I was able to connect, it was decent. This mirrored my experience when I traveled to the UK last year. This terminal had the same tablets that I saw the last time, and I leveraged them to order some coffee. It was delivered to my table within 10 minutes. One thing to note is that the system only takes debit and credit cards. If you want to pay cash, you’ll have to walk up to one of their restaurants and carry it back to your table. Speaking of my table, I should also note that I’m writing this blog entry from a table that has power and USB which makes it handy to keep your devices charged.

There was one other thing that I noticed in Terminal 1:

Best Buy clearly is aiming this at travelers who forgot some sort tech related item. It takes credit cards and seems to be easy to use. I bet Best Buy saves some bucks on employees with this setup as well.

My next stop is Dubai UAE. I’ll arrive on Saturday evening Dubai time and I will have a 90 minute layover before continuing to New Delhi India. I’ll post a report when I arrive in Dubai to let you know what the Dubai International Airport is like.